Hub of the Cycle
by Laly Konstantin
Summary: The cycle of summoning has been disrupted... but maybe that's why the constellations out of the four gods' realms have warriors. So why do they need Keisuke and Toki?
1. Pulling

Hub of the Cycle  
by Laly Konstantin  
  
Introduction - the pull  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own Fushigi Yuugi, or the ancient Chinese constellations. But you know that anyway, and i have a party to get to. :-P  
  
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'You really think this will work?' Two scrolls clutched in her hand, a young dark-haired girl leaned back around the corner of the old monastery. 'You think we can get to that world without a miko?'  
  
'C'mon, take a chance.' Flashing a winning grin, the lanky boy halfway down the corridor motioned for her to follow. 'Even if the legends are wrong, so what? We'll hunt something out.'  
  
'I didn't really mean we should go back,' the girl replied defensively, hastening to move again. 'I just wondered if you really believe it all.'   
  
The two made their way to the roof, Tei opening most of the doors and Shoshi mumbling as she went through. 'Where last a god was summoned, there must be a visitor from that land...' she accented her words with more scroll-rustling. 'Must be hard for a Konan boy like you.'   
  
The view from the roof was breathtaking, hills and paths winding down to a lovely village wrapped in the bloom of spring. The building itself was less picturesque. Tei imagined the place should have a glow or something, but maybe it looked so gloomy because Seiryuu had been sealed away.  
  
Obviously, Suzaku's summoning ground would glow. And he'd be the one to see it.   
  
Little did he know that other eyes, watching from the village below, saw the entire building wrapped in a vortex of red and green that contracted, and flattened out, until it formed a star between the two silhouettes, tiny and weak-looking, at its top.  
  
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Tei's feet rematerialised under him, and he backed into something soft. That something soft yelped, and collapsed in a heap as he turned around.   
  
'What the hell???' Tei looked around in amazement. People, everywhere, and giving him rather strange looks. He heard Shoshi gasp, and looked down to see her gaping, probably wide enough to catch that turtle god of hers whole.  
  
'This is it, this is absolutely the world in the shell.'  
  
'The what?' Tei responded, immediately shifting attention back to the strange world. 'Is this the world of the mikos?' He breathed deeply, and immediately coughed on the unfamiliar aroma of car exhaust. 'Ugh.'  
  
'It's beautiful,' Shoshi murmured. 'Hey, do you feel a pull?' she asked, quite seriously.   
  
Unfortunately, she was instinctively tugging on Tei's long tunic, and he misunderstood. 'Of course I feel a pull, dolt! You testing if this is a dream or something?' He elbowed her on the head.  
  
'Ow!' Shoshi winced, then pushed herself off the ground. 'That's *not* what I meant. I mean, a pull.. that way.' She pointed. 'Like somebody calling to me...'  
  
Tei blinked a little - Gods, the sunlight here was strange - and looked where she was pointing. 'Umm... now that you mention it, I'd rather go that way.' He pointed in the opposite direction. 'And it's not really a call. More like a gong right by the side of my head...'  
  
Shoshi guiltily pushed away the pleasant mental image of herself bashing a very large gong exactly where he'd specified, and shrugged. 'Let's go your way first, then. I mean, seishi were pulled to miko, right? So maybe we're supposed to follow our instinct, here.'  
  
'Um, great.' Pushing a hand through thick white hair, Tei blinked at the vehicles moving rapidly through the streets. 'Now how do we cross?'  
  
To be continued... 


	2. Finding

Hub of the Cycle  
by Laly Konstantin  
  
Chapter 1 - Finding  
disclaimer in introduction  
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'Whew.' Tei pushed sweaty bangs out of his eyes. 'See? We crossed between worlds, and we figured out those streets, too!' Unpleasantly, he remembered the first crossing they'd tried, and the horrible screeching sounds the vehicles had made trying to stop for him. Well, he and Shoshi had figured it out - you wait for the green walking guy, and all the traffic will have stopped anyway. He had to admit, that was far more ordered than any such travel (not that there was, exactly, that kind of travel) in Konan. Of course, Shoshi had had to comment that Genbu's colour was the one that guided them safely, but he scarcely cared. After all, Suzaku was guiding him, and had brought them all the way here.  
  
All the way here being the top of over a dozen flights of stairs, which the pull in his head had insisted would carry him to... whatever he was seeking.  
  
Shoshi collapsed to her knees. 'This building has too many floors. How do people live in this world?' She shook her head, wishing one of the seishi memories she'd been born with had some advice on the matter.   
  
Tei stared down at her for a moment. 'You gonna get up or not?' In response, she held out a hand, and he pulled her to her feet.   
  
Then, totally without warning and without letting go, he set off running down the hall. 'We're so close, now! Come on, come on...' They skidded to a stop in front of a door. Just like all the other doors, but Tei just knew it was the right one. 'It's here!' he shouted.  
  
Shoshi wrinkled her nose. 'What's that smell? Is something burning?' Seeing the gleam of a very small window, she tried to look through. It was a little above her eye level, though, and blurry anyway. She shrugged. Again, nothing too important, or one of the warriors who'd seen this world would remember it.  
  
Tei was glaring, when she turned around. 'You mind?' he said pointedly, and he moved toward the door, placing a hand over its handle. Putting the other on his head - a habit that helped his concentration, as well as blocking the eerie sunlike light that emanated from his symbol - he found the metal that kept the door shut and reminded it what it was like to be open. A push didn't work, then, so he pulled.  
  
And came face-to-face with a very surprised older (but still young) man.  
  
Shoshi, meanwhile, just about passed out. 'Yuuki-san, I don't believe it! You're still alive?' She threw her arms around him, leaving a bewildered Tei to wonder what, exactly, he'd been so desperate to find.  
  
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'You're still alive?' and then he was strangled by a chick who looked like she came straight out of the 'Universe of the Four Gods.' Keisuke blinked, still a little shocked at his company. He didn't know either of them, he was sure, but one seemed to know how to get into his family's apartment and the other... well...   
  
He suspected she'd just crushed his windpipe, when she finally let go.   
  
'Hi.' He also wondered how many degrees his face was from catching fire. It couldn't be more than ten. Awkwardly, he ushered the two in with an oven-mitted hand, and closed the door behind them. It wouldn't stay shut.  
  
'Why'm I looking for you?' asked the lock-picker, looking kind of red himself. He leaned over to the girl and whispered, quite loudly, 'You lose your mind somewhere? What's your problem?'   
  
'Shh,' she answered, still watching Keisuke and joyfully oblivious to his discomfort. 'He's Suzaku no Miko's brother, and he's in Shichiseishi Tamahome's memories, so I know he's a good guy.'  
  
'Really?' The boy's eyes lit up. 'I'm Tei. Born in Konan, glad to meet a relation to the Miko.' He bowed, and Keisuke blinked again as he continued. 'I was born as one of the constellations of the central sky, and we're born with, I guess, the same kind of duty. We think.'   
  
He'd sounded pretty impressive, at first, but by the end Shoshi was rolling her eyes. 'I am also one of the central constellations, Shoshi. I'm pleased to meet you, but there's something else in this world that I'm looking for, and I'm afraid I wish to impose on your generosity. As you know, Tei and I are unfamiliar with this world...' Shoshi literally ran out of breath. Gasping for air, she still spared a harsh look at Tei when he snickered.  
  
'She's being pulled around, too,' the boy said, trying for a more serious expression. 'I was pulled to you... I'm not sure why, but she's being pulled too.'   
  
Keisuke nodded sympathetically, already excited in spite of his history with the Four Gods. 'Let me make a phone call, okay?' He tore off the oven mitt as he dashed to the phone.  
  
His guests watched, curious about his actions. 'What's a phone call?' Tei asked, and Shoshi quieted him. She couldn't believe their luck. Whatever fate they belonged to - the Four Gods, some unknown central force holding her and Tei's constellations together - she had to appreciate its efficiency in finding one of the few men in this world who would understand their origin and be willing to help them.  
  
Also, like a declaration from the gods, the pull she felt strengthened. She wondered if all the central constellations born were to find a guardian from the other world, and what that could possibly have to do with their duty. There were no stories, after all, of central seishi in the long history of summoning, and power shift between the territories of the four gods; so there were no hints or rules to follow.  
  
Tei exclaimed in surprise as he realised the door was still open. Quickly, he shut it and reminded the lock to do what it was supposed to. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Keisuke hadn't noticed.  
  
In the next fifteen minutes, they were off the phone, down the elevator ('I remember now!' Shoshi exclaimed. 'Can it go up with people in it, too?') and into a taxi, which the others left Shoshi to direct.  
  
'Um... that way?' she nervously pointed. The car turned, and Tei fell against her. 'Put that thing on!' she urged, indicating the seatbelt. 'These things are dangerous!' She had memories of wrecks, people in pain, during the battle between Suzaku and Seiryuu in this world.  
  
The taxi driver was already quite unhappy with his strange passengers. 'How far?' he demanded.  
  
'I'll tell you when we get there!' she snapped back. After a few moments of silent reprimand, she added, 'It's a while, I'm pretty sure. Maybe if you take us to a, um, train station? I can look at a map and see...' Keisuke turned around, looking worried. 'It can't be *that* far,' she added.   
  
Keisuke sweatdropped. 'I don't have money for a taxi and the train, not for three of us.'   
  
Tei looked up. 'I have money.'  
  
Keisuke sent him a doubtful look, and Shoshi agreed. 'It's probably not the right kind, Tei.'  
  
The driver sped up. Somewhere along the line, it had occurred to him that he had a very strange, possibly mentally disturbed group of people in this small space, and he would like to get out of that situation as fast as possible.  
  
Tei, having been thrown back a bit by the sudden acceleration, persisted. 'What does the money here look like? It's metal, right?' His head started glowing.  
  
Keisuke, noticing the light, half-panicked and waved his hands in a signal to stop. 'Not right now! We'll work it out later. So.' He shifted his attention to the driver, but his mouth hung open as he figured out what to say. 'How's traffic today?' he finally tried, with an overly-genki grin. 'Must be hard for a normal guy to get around.'  
  
The driver refuted the statement with a little swerving at mach speeds. 'I'm a taxi driver. No... problem at all.'   
  
He was clearly happy, though, when he got them to the train station.  
  
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By now, Keisuke considered, he didn't even mind the stares from other passengers as his companions gawked out the window.   
  
'I knew what it's like,' Shoshi said, 'but really being here... Wow.'   
  
Tei, meanwhile, had been toying with the remnants of his money whenever he wasn't staring outside. Keisuke didn't quite want to ask how he'd acquired it, but he suspected it was a little like what he'd done to get into the apartment earlier. Somewhere along the line, he realised, being involved with 'Universe of the Four Gods' had turned a lot of the people he knew into thieves.  
  
Finally, though, they were near Morioka. He'd called Toki en route, and the monk agreed to drive them wherever they needed to go. If he hadn't, Keisuke worried that Shoshi would have just run off on her own until she found whatever, or whoever, she wanted. At this point, just watching her fidget made him tired.  
  
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Toki arrived at the train station, worked through the crowd, waited for the train; through all of this, he was quite at peace mentally. He was always glad to hear from Keisuke, and somehow the apprehension he should feel at hearing that two people had reversed the journey and come out of the 'Universe of the Four Gods' didn't come. Perhaps he still had a little of the skepticism he'd always regarded Suzuno-san's stories with. Keisuke could have been joking - he was that sort of young man, after all.   
  
Nonetheless, Toki waited by a directory, and the Tokyo train finally arrived. When the doors slid open, a girl leapt directly onto the platform several metres away, and immediately turned to face him. He didn't notice her, though, until he heard Keisuke's belated shout of protest, and saw the miko's brother lean out with an exasperated look.   
  
Then his eyes met the girl's, and that apprehension woke up like a dog to a whistle. Orange eyes, full of memories, almost as though he should be in them somewhere and she was just looking, but she blinked and slowly began to walk toward him.  
  
'You guard the miko's grave, don't you?' she murmured, almost too low for him to hear in the half-crowded station. A shudder, and then an almost apologetic bow. 'Pleased to meet you. I am Shoshi.'  
  
Shoshi the central constellation, he immediately recognised. Not in the provence of any of the four gods. 'I am Toki, and I do watch over the graves of Genbu and Byakko no Miko.'  
  
Keisuke approached, as did a boy he'd never seen before, and they both stopped a short distance away from Shoshi. Keisuke said something, quietly enough, but the boy's incredulity beat out his discretion: 'You've gotta be kidding.' With that, he stepped forward, and in between Shoshi and Toki. 'You sure this is who you're looking for? That's crazy.'  
  
Shoshi shook her head, and smiled. 'Oh, come on. I think this makes perfect sense.' Her sudden joviality contrasted with her sombre mood ten seconds ago, as she looked from Toki to Keisuke. 'But since we all know each other now, what to do?'   
  
Toki and Keisuke exchanged a glance, and nodded. 'Find the "Universe of the Four Gods,"' Toki immediately responded.   
  
Keisuke winced. 'It's back in Tokyo, if anywhere. We should have picked it up.'  
  
Tei immediately looked confused. 'Pick it up?' He half-crouched behind Shoshi. 'They want to pick a universe up? That can't be good.'  
  
Oblivious, Toki and Keisuke had come to a decision. 'We'll take the car, and you can run in to the library first thing,' Toki declared. 'Will it still be open?'  
  
Keisuke stopped in his tracks at the question, and then pointed at the sky as though his idea had come from somewhere on the ceiling. 'Why don't I call someone to go get it now?'   
  
He ran off, and finally distracted Tei and Shoshi from her exasperated explanation that their world could only be reached through a portal, and the portal happened to be a book, and no, that didn't mean someone could kill him by scratching his name out and he of all people should know that - well, Tei's attention faltered somewhere around that point, anyway.   
  
Now that she had Toki to herself, she'd be able to throw her questions at him. And did she ever throw... incidentally, the bald man took it all in stride, and the two seemed to be getting along already.  
  
Tei just wanted to sit down and think, not necessarily somewhere quiet but preferably somewhere less loud than the station. Funny, he'd always liked people, and cities were exciting; but in this world, there was something different about how people came together, and it made him feel tired. A little bit sad, too.  
  
He kicked at the ground until Keisuke came back, and kicked at the stairs on the way to the car. He almost tripped a few times, but he couldn't help it.  
  
He even felt a headache coming on as they walked to Toki's parked car. He hated being gloomy; it wasn't like him. Maybe he was just homesick.  
  
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To be continued... Whew, long chapter. Toki's stubborn about being written... ::sigh:: 


End file.
